Don’t forget how the empire fell. They allowed “foreigners” unto their ranks to fill the military coffers whose loyalties were not for the Republic. Slowly but surely, their enemies outnumbered the Roman legions they had to “buy” more foreigner armies to fight wars for them which of course, turned on them once they saw how weak they’ve become. Sounds familiar?
The Roman republic lasted near four hundred years. Ours lasted barely 150. Machiavelli is the father of political science and worth a read.
He and Livy also addressed the topic of foreigners in their ranks.
Even at the end Roman legions were loyal, but they were loyal first to their commanders. When incompetant Emperors forgot that, bad things happened.
Add child Emperors and...
In 395, 11 year old Honorius became absolute Ruler of the West. Fortunately for the West, there vwas a competant leader of the military Stillcho, who kept the barbarians at bay. Until Honorius had him murdered in 408. In 410, the Visigoths sacked Roman.
In 425 Honorius was succeeded by his 6 year old nephew, Valentian III. He turned out even more incompetant than Honorius, but had an even more competant military leader, Aetius. In 454 Valentian had Aetius murdered. A year later, the Vandals sacked Rome.
Rome fell from the top.
I read “The Roman Guide to Slave Management” recently, and one interesting observation the character made was that the long and constant wars led to conscription of free farmers to the point that they couldn’t maintain their farms. They had to sell the land to the large land owners who could afford slaves, since the slaves didn’t get called off to war and the owner could have an overseer watch it even if he had to serve.
The continual wars wore down the middle class yeoman farmer while fueling the growth of ultra-rich and the very bottom (slaves).
To some degree, the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had the same effect.
In Afghanistan, we should have hit them hard, taken out the enemy but not tried to rebuild it as we did Germany and Japan. The cultures are too foreign, too hostile.
In the case of Iraq, rebuilding and creating a democracy was possible, as it was a more secular state. I think Obama ruined that by pulling us out too soon and not hitting the terrorists still in that nation hard enough. So now you have Saddam’s old army joining ISIS to give it military strategists while they get prestige, pay and sex slaves.
Dreamers and Amnesty. Obama's plan is clear.